Medibuntu shouldn't distribute software against their license

[Christoph Langner]

Inside the medibuntu repos you offer packages which violate most likely the distribution policy of these products. E.g.

Adobe Reader:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/distribute.html

Skype:
http://www.skype.com/legal/promote/distribute/

In those cases both companies offer packages for various Linux distributions. The Ubuntu packages they offer. work nice for uptodate Ubuntus. So why don't you respect those licenses?

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

To put in a nutshell, because that's the purpose of Medibuntu (like debian-multimedia for debian or plf for mandriva for example).

Some technical thoughts:
* The packages provided by Adobe suck (wrong naming, wrong section, missing dependencies, wrong installation directory... obviously the packager hasn't read the Debian Policy yet).
* Skype provides a better package for Ubuntu, except that it seems to be built on/for debian stable, and the binary compatibility isn't assured between Debian and Ubuntu. Moreover, they don't provide an amd64 package (users have to call some ugly things like dpkg --force-architecture).

Anyway, these packages (with Google Earth), aren't the easiest to maintain, and we'd be happy if Canonical provided them in their commercial repository (it's its purpose also), so we could drop them. But until this (or until the companies provide good packages), we keep them.

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

Should the status of this bug be set to "Invalid"?

[Kemel Zaidan aka Legendario (kemelzaidan)]

I don't see anything wrong on distributing these software (which are free to use) on a special repository for it. I believe those companies are happy to have their products usable by ubuntu users and with the less work they have. There must have been an agreement between Canonical and those companies for those packages to be included.

So, i do agree this bug should be set as invalid.

[Kemel Zaidan aka Legendario (kemelzaidan)]

Also, the reporter of the bug could be more specific on which clauses aren't being respected

[Christoph Langner (chrissss)]

Adobe Reader, Skype, Google Earth is free software, but only free, as in "free beer"...

Adobe Reader:
To redristribute Adobe Reader you've got to sign Adobe Reader Distribution Agreement [1]. Did Medibuntu do that?

Skype:
Again, look into their distribution terms [2]

---
1.1 As an exception to the Agreement, You are allowed to distribute the Skype Software, only for a legitimate purpose, and under the conditions as set forth herein.
...
1.3 You will not distribute other products or services together with Skype Software, unless You are a publisher of computer magazines for end users and distribute the Skype Software with Your magazine(s) for free.

1.4 You will not distribute Skype Software through other media than CD-ROM or DVD, unless approved by Skype in an explicit written communication to You.

1.5 You will acknowledge that the provisions of the Agreement must be agreed to by all end users who install the Skype Software that You distribute.

1.6 You will not undertake, cause, permit or authorize the modification, creation of derivative works, translation, reverse engineering, decompiling, disassembling or hacking of the Skype Software or any part thereof. Further, You will not make any indications about Skype’s intellectual property rights illegible.

...

1.9 You will at any and all times clearly indicate that the Skype Software originates from Skype by marking the words “Includes Skype Software” on the packaging material and/or on the distributed physical medium, and will at any time comply with all further instructions provided by Skype for the distribution of the Skype Software.
---

Medibuntu doesn't follow all these points...

[1] http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrdistribute.html
[2] http://www.skype.com/legal/promote/distribute/

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

For one, I'm a thankful 64bit user of those programs that I got from Medibuntu.

If you have a beef with this and want to make my life harder, at least work for a possible solution.

[Daniel Gimpelevich (daniel-gimpelevich)]

It is very easy for a .deb package to respect the Google Earth license, the same way flashplugin-nonfree and java-package do. I made a script that does this, but I never got around to debianizing it, and I have not tested it against recent updates to G.E., but if someone were to do so, it could be moved to multiverse, and would not be needed in medibuntu. Please take a look:
http://linuxmafia.com/isos/GetGoogleEarth

[Rakotomandimby Mihamina (tech-infogerance)]

Medibuntu must go on this way.

If Ubuntu and Linux in general stays a 1% used OS: Adobe and Google wont care.

If Ubuntu and Linux in general grows more and more: Adobe and Google will be thankfull.

So, nothing to change.

[Kemel Zaidan aka Legendario (kemelzaidan)]

Setting as invalid.

[Jan Claeys (janc)]

Kemel, would be nice if you could explain why this bug report is marked invalid...

AFAIK the bug still exists (and worse, there seem to be Adobe Reader & Skype packages in Canonical's commercial partner repository now)?

If there is something wrong with those packages, then reporting a bug about that is sure better than duplicating them in Medibuntu?

And for the other packages it would be nice to make them legal, as Daniel explains...